About the Great Outdoors

Short Walks

This morning when I was out playing a round of golf with the ‘girls’, we spotted a family of Canada geese on one of the fairways.Fortunately, they were quite near the tee, so were not in too much danger of being hit by a ball.

After my golf round, I went home and came back with my scope and camera to take some photographs of this lovely family. The weather forecast had been for rain, but it turned out to be a lovely sunny day.

Here are some photographs of the birds.

Canada Geese on the fairway looking towards the tee

Under the watchful eye of mum

Dad looking out for any danger

Dad having a snack

After being on the fairway, the family made their way to the pond for a relaxing swim, but stopped off in the undergrowth for another snack. This gave me a chance to get some good close-up images of the young ones.

Baby Canada Goose

Another baby

Another baby

Swimming in the pond

Safely between mum and dad for safety

Looking over the pond, I also saw some Greylag Geese with their young. They were a bit far away, but the photograph came out okay.

Greylag Geese

A Moorhen was in the distance with her young but was too far away to photograph well.

All the photographs were taken by digiscope and they turned out well. What a great way to spend an afternoon!

While playing golf this morning I noticed bluebells through the boundary fence. I decided to go back in the afternoon and photograph them. I used my camera phone, which does give some good results.

Bluebells

Thanks to horse racing at Hamilton Park, which is just beside the golf course, I went up to the boundary fence to watch a race and saw an abundance of bluebells in the woods. In England they are called common bluebells and are associated with ancient woodland. Bluebells only grow in ancient woodland.

In the United Kingdom, an ancient woodland is a woodland that has existed continuously since 1600 or before in England and Wales and 1750 in Scotland.

Bluebells

Bluebells

As the photographs above show, the bluebells look lovely and, being in quite a remote area, have not been trampled on.

Close-up of bluebells

Sadly, bluebells only flower in April and May but they do a spectacular display.

The weather on Friday was bright and sunny and quite mild for early February. We decided to walk again in Linn Park, but this time on the opposite side of White Cart, from the walk we had done a few days before.

As it would have taken a good 40 minutes to walk to the entrance of the park, we took a no. 6 bus along Clarkston Road to the entrance, which reduced the time to 7 minutes. We were starting and finishing at different points so could not take the car.

Commonwealth Games 2014

Arriving at the park we saw that it was a designated hub park for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Hub Park

The entrance into the park is by a tarmac path so our shoes did not get as muddy as they had on the walk a few days previously.

Entrance to Linn Park

I was familiar with this part of the park, as I had been there in 2012.

Path in Linn Park

It was a lovely early Spring day, as the photographs above show.

Path in Linn Park

The advantage of walking early in the year is that there are better views of the river as they are not restricted by foliage.

Small footbridge

A small footbridge takes visitors over the White Cart Water to the other side. Some dog walkers were there with a number of dogs, which were all very friendly.

View of the Park

Linn House

In the photograph above a mansion house can be seen in the top right. This is Linn House, which was built around 1811 for Rev. James Hall. A short time later he became bankrupt, resulting in the house and estate being put up for auction on behalf of the creditors.

Linn Waterfall

We were able to view the waterfall from the other side of the river and get closer than we had been on the other side of the river.

Signpost

The park is well signposted and the above photograph shows lovely blue sky.

Countryside in Glasgow

In the photograph above, it is difficult to believe it was taken in one of the largest cities in Europe! It looks like it was taken in the Scottish countryside and not in an industrial city.

White Cart Water

Our walk through the park was coming to an end and we soon arrived at Snuffmill Bridge where we had started from on our walk a few days previously. It had been a great walk. We arrived back at the office for our last few hours of the working week before the weekend arrived.